Ode to the Elements

While Shelley's poem, "Ode to the West Wind," undeniably has profound philosophical meaning in that Shelley appeals to the wind for help as he copes with the onset of time and fading intellectual influence, the poem is profound in a Wordworthian sense, too, because it is an ode to the classical elements. In the poem, Shelley depicts earth, water, air, and fire and describes the effect they have on him and on each other.
For example, air is quite apparent in the poem (considering the fact that the word itself is in the title). In canto I, Shelley references the "West Wind," "breath," "ghosts," "azure sister of the spring," and "wild spirit." These are all different portrayals of the ephemeral. Earth also appears in canto I as "leaves," "grave," and "sweet buds." These references are to earthly substances, such as foliage or the actual ground.
In canto II, Shelley begins to more intricately intertwine the elements and introduces water and fire to the mix. Water appears with "ocean," "rain," "black rain," and "hail." Shelley begins to stoke the fire in the poem with reference to "lightning" and "fire" itself. He sets the elements up in interaction with and opposition to each other when he splices together different elements into the same image, for example in line 17, he says that the wind "Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean." Here, he is essentially describing wind, an air force, tangling with earthly tree boughs that are figuratively in the air ("Heaven") and the water ("Ocean"). Further, the wind comes into this scene in a "stream" in line 15, which hearkens to streams of water, effectively mixing the two elements.
Shelley sets up more of these fusions of classical elements throughout the poem. The fusions perhaps help Shelley to express the cycle of interaction and reaction in nature, which has larger implications for his philosophical message: how do people and ideas change over time and interact with each other? How do they effect change?